


Demon ex machina

by Bacner



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: AU - Freeform, F/M, Gen, HuntingBird (mentioned), Johnny Blaze (mentioned), Mysticism, Some profanity, The Darkhold, everybody knows each other, relationships, the universe reset
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-12
Updated: 2017-05-12
Packaged: 2018-10-31 02:29:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10889799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bacner/pseuds/Bacner
Summary: Just another time-travel/fix-it story. Sort of.





	Demon ex machina

…The battle was almost over, and the world was practically saved – again. Aida was down to Anton, having exhausted all of her powers, and Anton seemed to have run out of bodies – no more appeared to be coming out of the woodwork. Daisy and Robbie, Mack and Yo-Yo, (Fitz was down for the count at the moment: Aida hit him, so Simmons dragged him out of the harm’s way, leaving the others to finish the latest villains, **cough** ), were about to end them.

Well, almost, for Anton still had the Darkhold. Technically, Aida was in charge, but right now, she was hanging onto the Russian turned supervillain and let him take point, which right now consisted of Anton reading something from the Darkhold, and it was not in English. Yo-Yo could run up to them and grab the Darkhold, but…the Darkhold had other ideas and would not let go of Anton. Um. The bloody book may not have been organic or alive, but it was clearly sentient on some level, so S.H.I.E.L.D.’s agents were not fully victorious yet. 

“Ivanov? Give up,” Daisy decided to try negotiations now. “The Darkhold may be powerful, but I seriously doubt that it will offer you anything better than we can. Come, you are a reasonable man… okay, a reasonable asshole, but still-“

Ivanov ignored her and finished reading the incantation in the Darkhold with an almost smug look on his face. However, it vanished almost immediately, as a massive fireball exploded out of nowhere, releasing an immense wave of heat, and reforming into a person that was very familiar to practically every agent present on the scene.

“Oh no, not you!” Daisy groaned, as she saw that same, ‘controversial’, face yet again. “Haven’t we seen the last of you in the framework? Are we fated to run into you forever?”  
Grant Ward just stared at her – long, hard, and in his body language, seven shades of being pissed-off. “I’m not particularly delighted, either, at being dragged-off from Kara’s wedding to see you, agent Poots, or your boyfriend of the month,” he glared at Reyes. “Seriously, man, I told you, Lincoln told you, the great maharajah told you: stop with the denials! They are just embarrassing. The daughter of Jiaying, Mary-Sue ‘Skye’ Poots decided to go for you and you should just relax and enjoy the ride. She is not going quite up to her mother’s sexual prowess yet, but she is getting there, we believe-“

“Excuse me,” Aida spoke, sounding genuinely worried here. “But are you our salvation?”

Grant lazily turned around, looked at the other non-agent people and stopped. And stared at them, in an intense, uncomfortable, manner. “Hah,” he said slowly, and rubbed his beard – in this incarnation, he had a beard, a short, round, and very thick. “Now this is unexpected, I think I just might salvage this social disaster and a visit from Poots-“

“My name is Skye! Not Poots!” Daisy snapped: so far, this version of Ward, which outright ignored her, was probably the most annoying one yet. “I mean Daisy-“

“Wait. You are Skye? That Skye?” Robbie finally decided to speak, (in a completely inopportune moment, as far as Daisy was concerned). “The one that everyone down below is talking about?” he jabbed his finger downwards, in the direction of the floor, (just not at the floor). “Seriously? What kind of a hero are you?”

“I’m not a hero,” Daisy growled. “I’m an agent-“

“And besides, just shut-up. You are embarrassing yourself – again. Idiot,” Grant commented as he pointedly ignored Daisy and Robbie’s discussion behind him. “She’s going to get you, and there’s nothing you can do about it-“

“Like Hell, jackass!” Robbie snapped at the other man instead. “I swear that I am not going to be her anyone’s or anybody or anything! Not in Heaven, or Hell, or anywhere else!”

“Oh, do you?” Grant turned around and gave Reyes a look. There was something strange about his body, about his shadow, but everyone was too distracted by the drama to pay much attention to it. “You swear an oath on this?” Now there was nothing flippant or dismissive about his voice: Grant Ward was completely serious.

Reyes, unfortunately, seemed to have the least amount of experience with Ward, and did not catch the nuances. “Yes!” he snapped. “I swear it-“

“On the Darkhold,” Grant said smoothly, as he took the book in question from Ivanov and trans-ferred it from the Russian’s grip to the Ghost Rider’s in an equally smooth motion.

“On the Darkhold! Daisy Johnson and I are not a couple and will never be a couple! I am my own man – not an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. and its assholes! We’re done!!”

“Your oath is accepted,” Grant Ward stated in a voice unlike his regular self, even as flames flickered around him, and Reyes, and the Darkhold…only to be overshadowed by much brighter ones…, which revealed the deceased director of S.H.I.E.L.D., Jeffrey Mace, when they vanished.

And the former Patriot was clearly angry. 

“Hudima – lord Hudima,” he said, all but shaking from the tightly self-controlled anger. “Do you have a reason for this obnoxious social gaffe that you just did?”

“Yes, oh great maharajah,” Grant replied politely, executing some sort of a courtly bow that looked truly strange, for him. “I have a reason – a much unexpected one, I confess. Great maharajah, look at the lady’s aura.”

Bizarrely, Jeffrey Mace did just that, taking a good look for himself at Aida and in a manner that made the former AI turned super-InHuman uncomfortable.

“Sir?” she spoke in an uncertain way, her senses, old and new, telling her things that even Daisy’s vibrations could not distinguish. “Um-“

“My child,” Jeffrey Mace spoke slowly, intently. “Who are you? Who are your parents?”

Aida turned red. “I, um, I was an android. Dr. Radcliffe built me for – various purposes.”

“Oh did he?” Jeffrey Mace smiled. It was not a nice smile. “When I get my hands on Radcliffe again the good doctor will be skinned and the rest will be scattered in the wind. Hudima, mark that.”

“Yes, oh great maharajah. And may I point out that the lady is a robot no longer?”

“That she is not,” Jeffrey Mace nodded. “How did you do it?”

“I used the Darkhold, and – a number of people to rebuild myself, to recreate myself, into a human. Or perhaps – into something better,” Aida replied with a trace of her old, pre-breakup with Fitz, arrogance.

“Excellent!” Jeffrey Mace smiled a smile that was not quite human or like anything that people at S.H.I.E.L.D. had ever seen on his face. “My dear, you’re making me proud!”

“I am? Why?” Aida blinked: no one had ever been proud of her for real, (though she was beginning to have some doubts regarding Ivanov), especially not Dr. Radcliffe…

“My dear, you are the new reincarnation of my son, Alveus,” Jeffrey Mace smiled gently. “After he got blown in the space with a nuke I never thought I’ll see him again, for we, even I, thought that he could never reincarnate – not after what the bloody Kree did to him…but he, you, proved me wrong! I’m so proud of you!” Moreover, he hugged Aida – very strongly, before eyeing Anton. “Also, what is the historical value of this person over here, child-?”

“I, um usually read the Darkhold for her,” Anton smiled with an ingratiating smile: he wasn’t sure as to what has happened to Mace after all of this time, but his gut – and experience – suggested that the man was a much bigger threat than before. 

“You learned how to delegate assignments to other people, more competent than you? Alveus, you’re on a roll!” Jeffrey beamed. “And the Darkhold?”

“Oh, Reyes swore an oath upon it,” Grant Ward smiled himself, far less submissively than Ivanov did. The flickering flames distorted the shadows of him and of Jeffrey Mace, in strange, disturbing ways. “Thus, he’s holding onto it.”

“More like it’s holding onto me,” Reyes muttered, trying to look as non-confrontational as he could. Considering that he was some sort of an InHuman, (that is what Daisy and others believed, anyhow, because they did not know better), and, well, a hothead, this was OOC for him. “Oh and hello? Long-time no see?”

“Reyes? You’re an idiot,” Mace replied flatly. “You’re one of the biggest idiots that I’ve met in my life, and believe me, I lived a long life and saw many idiots. You just made it to the top ten, as has Blaze, for making you his heir. Savvy?”

“I’ve no idea whom are you talking about-“

“Of course not, it’s not like we haven’t given you directions and everything,” Jeffrey muttered with clear disdain in his voice. “And Hudima? I guess that you haven’t given up as much as you thought?”

“You know me all too well, oh great maharajah,” Grant looked at the bigger man with all the warmth of a raptor staring at a T-Rex. “I never let go of what, or who, I want without a fight.”

“I hate you,” Daisy muttered quietly, not quite to herself. 

“Yes, I suppose you do,” Jeffrey seemed to be more bemused by her not quite defiance than anything else. “Prince Aksha! Can you and princess Kara come here? I regret to end your wedding day on such an ambiguous note, but it’s worth it!”

Two more fireballs exploded in room, revealing…the former agent 33 and Lincoln, of all people.

“…What is this? Some sort of an S.H.I.E.L.D. Christmas carol with me as the Scrooge?” Daisy twitched. 

“I don’t know – people seem to know you down there very well; your family is quite popular down under, it seems,” Robbie muttered back to her, extremely unenthusiastically. “You deserve them.”

“Yes she does, doesn’t she?” Jeffrey Mace beamed in a paternal way, before reaching out and pulling Reyes over to him – and he still had Aida and Ivanov in his grasp. “Now Hudima, after I take this kindergarten over to Johnny’s, the reality will reset itself, such is my gift to you. Use it wisely this time, do you hear?” And abruptly, he was gone. So was the Darkhold – and Aida, and Ivanov, and even Reyes. 

“WTF is going on here!” Daisy yelled – too shrilly for her tastes. “Ward, I don’t know if you’re real this time, but if you’re behind this.”

“Just a moment there, Poots,” Grant muttered, as he looked at his watch. “Campbell, Kara? Sorry about all of this, it just spiralled all out of control so quickly-“

“No problem,” Kara smiled benignly. “Also-“

Yelling something illegible, Lance and Bobbi fell from the sky almost onto Daisy. 

“-There’s them,” Kara beamed brightly – and the world erupted.

/ / /

When the eruption stopped, Daisy found herself…in her van. Her old van, dressed in her old clothes, from the time before S.H.I.E.L.D., meaning that she was Skye right at now…and she had no powers.

Well, this was not a problem; not really, she could probably find some terrigen mist crystals or their analogue…of course, this meant running into her father, something that she did not exactly want…hm.

As Daisy pondered what to do, whether or not she was in the framework, there was a knock on her van’s door. She opened it, saw the bag with fast food, went for it, closed the door, bit down on a burger, and her brain caught up with the rest of her.

“This is getting ridiculous,” she muttered, as she opened her van once more. “Robot, get in!”

“Thank you, Poots,” Grant nodded as he gratefully got in, no longer looking as forlorn as he had just moments earlier. “Sorry for dropping all of this in your lap so unexpectedly – it all had caught me by surprise too, actually. Here I was, helping Kara marry Lincoln-“

“Did she?” Daisy blinked. “When and where did they meet?”

“Oh, he fell upon us in Limbo, so to speak,” Grant pinched his nose. “And…that’s all I’m going to say about the whole situation, I’ll let them explain it all for a change. They’re married, you know,” he finished, clearly uncomfortable.

“Oh.” Daisy blinked. “So director Mace – or is it the former director? – changed the world. Is the Darkhold involved?”

“Yes, though I doubt that we will see it anytime soon, and I for one don’t miss it,” Ward muttered back. “Anyways, since I, and Kara, and Lincoln, are trying to do things differently this second time around, you want to be a part of it? A part of S.H.I.E.L.D. too…”

Daisy gave her former S.O. a look. “Things are going to be different,” she said, quietly. “Garrett is going to die…um, well, he did die, but-“

“I know,” Grant looked away first. “I missed you.”

“Likewise,” Daisy leaned onto him and for a while, the two just sat in silence. 

“…So,” Daisy said when it became obvious that the two of them were just too comfortable with each other, even in a non-sexual manner. “What are the differences?”

And Grant told her.

_The End?_


End file.
